Friday, December 31, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
TRON: Legacies
It was the Year of the Geek when we met, my friend and I, the same year of the original TRON's release, yet 1982 seemed a long time ago in a galaxy far away as we stood at the front of the line for its sequel. His seven-year-old son brought an identity disc along, a toy replica from their summer visit to the elecTRONica exhibit at Disneyland, and afterward as we ate dinner and digested what we had seen kept it close at hand like he was ready to dive back into the game grid at any second.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Sound of Wonder
What will be tomorrow
Don't think
Sing with me humanity
Dama Dam Mast Qalandar
Sakhi Shahbaz Qalandar
This is the Song of Wonder
Sound of Wonder
Get together
Don't be lonely
Life is a game of a few days only
What's happiness or what is sorrow
Don't think
Sing with me humanity
Live and Let Live
Love and Give Love
Love is God & God is Love
What you lend or what you borrow
Don't think
Sing with me humanity
What's today
What will be tomorrow
Don't think
Sing with me humanity
Dama Dam Mast Qalandar
Sakhi Shahbaz Qalandar
This is the Song of Wonder
Sound of Wonder
-M Ashraf
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Three More Days
In short, I've got a lot to look forward to this weekend -and so do you: an end to my TRON rantings! It is, after all, the Season of Miracles.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Wet of the Samurai
There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything. -Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Purple Swan
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Zoo Station
My day starts with a walk, rousting myself in the wee hours to trudge through the park for a nice warm dose of caffeine. There's a dirt path that winds past the eastern border of the zoo that during the rainy season turns into Gravy Lane. Splorching your way up the muddy incline, it leads to a footbridge that after traversing Aurora Avenue debouches into the park proper. Lovely spot. I've had some of my best walks there, at times developing into a full trot when the ideas are flowing so freely that I can't wait to get home and write them down: most if not all primary plotting of my novel occurred during walks in Lower Woodland Park. I'll miss it a lot.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Free Julian
Officials griping over damage done to the USG seem to suggest that things were better before the documents were leaked. Hmmm. Should we go back to spying and bombing under the cover of diplomacy, serving up blatant falsehoods
through the complicit media? Naturally this isn't what officials intend to say, but their disingenuity is clear. Those that go a step further and call for the death penalty and hunting him down only increase the stature of an unlikely hero. These people should keep their ugly ideas to themselves until the whole thing blows over. They aren't the only ones.
Assange is on record stating his innocence. Whether or not Pentagon honey trap is the leading thought on his mind is up for debate, but a recent article includes suggestive statements like this one from his accusers:
In her interview, she dismissed the idea, seized on by many conspiracy theorists that ‘dirty tricks’ lay behind the rape allegations, because of WikiLeaks’ defiance of the US government. She said: “The charges against Assange are of course not orchestrated by the Pentagon.”It's possible she was asked a leading question, but such an assertion is curious. I'm not saying a conspiracy is afoot; that would be WikiLeaks' department, wouldn't it? I do recall the first rule of journalism, never believe anything until it's officially denied, and this comes pretty damn close to fitting in that category.
The USG should declare a moratorium on official statements concerning Julian Assange. They are playing into WikiLeaks' strategy of obfuscation and serving merely to distract from issues of substance, namely the flimsy security that allowed such massive troves of secret documents to be exposed. It's too late to quell the uproar and there's no way to gag Assange, who has the world waiting on his every word, so why not focus instead on damage control and address real problems.
To read Assange in his own words, I recommend this eloquent statement released this week from The Australian.
The Brothers Miser
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Two Years is Not Permanent
Monday, December 06, 2010
Divide and Capitulate
I ended my job contract over a year ago and haven't worked a day since, being way over- or under-qualified for the jobs that are available. Now my benefits are set to run out at the end of the year unless tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent are extended.
What's truly sad is that job prospects will not be improved by this compromise; quite the opposite, in fact. Small business, the main engine of job growth, is being left out. While $70 million in tax credits is on the plate for the majority of citizens, $140 billion goes to the tiny minority of the wealthiest among us, none of whom will be inclined to do anything but squirrel those savings away. This will pump up the federal deficit beyond its already astronomical bulk and do nothing to improve our dismal economy. This isn't fiscal conservatism; it's fiscal madness. This is the kind of thing we saw in the Bush era, and now Obama is working with the opposition to keep it going. Meanwhile his own party lays blame and squabbles with each other, creating a new paradigm in US politics: divide and capitulate.
Lame duck season is open to all comers and those with the biggest guns are walking away with all the greatest gains. The way things are going, it might be the last time hunting is this good.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
This Week's Face
Hamlet is a little vague. Things. Presumably these things include faces. As in, what face are you wearing this week? A question with special meaning on Facebook, where you can look like whomever you please for whatever reason you want. Some reasons are political.
The Face of the Week phenomenon came to my notice a year back or so, when the idea spread, phage-like, that everybody should change their profile picture to whatever celebrity they most resemble. Response was surprisingly swift and widespread. It was amusing to see who looked like whom. The only rule, if you could call it that, was to keep the pic posted for one week, an arbitrary length of time. Not as fleeting as a day nor as trying as a month (a lifetime on Facebook) and just long enough to register on the newsfeed.
This week's is to fly an image of your favorite childhood cartoon character in opposition to child abuse. I can get behind that, yet the impact of changing your pic is so limited. What purpose does it really serve? I'm against it, but solidarity doesn't fight child abuse or even address it. The only people who will see your profile pic are friends, none of whom (we hope) are abusers and who are therefore already in agreement with you. Some of my friends have railed against the stupidity of taking part in such a pointless exercise; others, instead of changing their pic, posted links to get actively involved in fighting abuse against children. I did both. Does it matter?
Facebook is a self-perpetuating experiment in groupthink, where unanimity is preferred over quality decision-making, a heaven-earth mashup teeming with Hamlet's things, philosophical or otherwise, wise or foolish, altogether human. Which is not to say I take it so seriously that I believe my profile pic is of any consequence outside the arena of faces. Still, it's more fun to take part than stand apart... when it comes to things dreamt of in my philosophy.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Happy Cookie Day
The English word "cookie" is derived from the Dutch word "koekje," which means little cake. Bakers used to place a small amount of cake batter in the oven to test the temperature. They soon discovered that these little bits of cooked batter were quite tasty on their own, and the cookie was born!
The humble cookie has evolved a lot since then, and now there are hundreds of varieties baked across the world every day, from the classic chocolate chip to more exotic offerings with caramel, macadamia nuts, dried fruits and more. Cookies can be broadly classified into 3 categories. First are "drop" cookies. These are aptly named because the batter is dropped onto the cookie sheet. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin are all examples of drop cookies.
Second are "rolled" cookies. Rolled cookies are rolled out like pie dough, and then cut-out using a cutter. Sugar cookies are the most popular rolled cookies, followed closely by gingerbread. Rolled cookies may also be "rolled up" into a cylinder and then sliced off and baked. Rolled cookies bake up firmer and flatter than drop cookies, and are therefore ideal for personalizing with icing and other toppings. Third are pressed cookies. For pressed cookies, the dough is loaded into a cookie press, and then extruded, typically using various dies to create interesting shapes. Spritz cookies are the most common pressed cookie variety.
Some also consider bars and brownies as a fourth cookie variety, since the ingredients are very similar, and the resultant treats are typically cut into single serving sizes.
Cookies are a multi-billion dollar industry in the US, ranging from packaged cookies at the grocery store to fresh-baked cookies at the mall, and even Internet bakeries that ship direct to your or your gift recipients. So this year when December 4 comes around, remember this humble little cake by munching on one or by sending a cookie gift to your loved ones.
13 Days and Counting
I've always thought this is one of the more unique cameos in film history. In 1982, when TRON came out, it was definitely not cool to be a geek, not like it is now, what with the booming popularity of The Big Bang Theory and so on. Little inserts of geek culture like this were few, if they occurred at all. Part of the abiding charm of that year for a science fiction fan. It was the year that every month brought a new classic of the genre. Blade Runner, the second Star Trek movie, E.T., Poltergeist, The Road Warrior, The Thing... a seminal year for geekdom, without a doubt.
We're watching an odd double bill today, TRON and Die Hard. Originally just intending to watch the one, when word got out that one of the gal's friends has never seen the greatest christmas action movie of them all, we decided to double down. Should be fun. We'll watch 40 Stories of Sheer Adventure (Die Hard's tagline), break for an intermission supper and then fire up TRON himself, which nobody present will have seen before; or if they did, it was long ago and is now a distant, barely perceptible memory.
That's why I'm here: to create good memories.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Like and Drop
I'm not funny. I've been told. A couple strangers went out of their way this week to let me know this on Facebook. Griefers, we call these folk in the world of the interwebs. Strangers who camp out with no other intent than to harass and provoke. I've felt their sting. They didn't like the videos I was posting. Unlike anyone else that found them unamusing, however, these unsolicited guests communicated in no uncertain terms that I'm not funny. Which means that not only did I waste their time, but they turned around and wasted mine in return. Hoo-rah.
What does this have to do with anything, you might ask, dear reader. What, indeed. You see, I've finally finally realized how Entrecard and Facebook are connected (and it's not that they're both a waste of time): they let you appreciate the better things, each one in its unique but connected fashion. I'll let you in on what I mean.
Something appreciated on Facebook has the option to be liked. There's a "like" button at the bottom right of everything posted on the newsfeed, and you can choose to click it or not, depending on your preference. Entrecard has a similar function, in the form of a "drop" button. A similar function in my mind, anyhow.
I don't see a great divide between "liking" and "dropping" in any other light than dropping has an attached value of Entrecard credits that can be used to advertise, in the loosest form of the word, on other blogs. The value of liking on Facebook is advertising on someone else's profile that what they posted was found worthwhile. Not terribly similar, but not miles apart, either.
Both are positive acts of reinforcement and miles apart from what griefers will do to you, at least.